The Nature of Grief
by bubblegum-buddy
Summary: 'Dolorosa' doesn't mean 'sorrow.' It means 'grieving.'


She would never be able to erase the image of his eyes.

The highbloods had taken him away, arrested him for treason, blasphemy, murder, and other crimes, all of which he did not commit. It was so unfair.

They stripped him of his clothes and placed him in those garments instead, the "Righteous Leggings." As if anything about this was righteous or just.

They made him kneel in front of the Empress, kicking into his back and laughing all the while. She wished she could have taken his place.

They asked him to take back all of his sermons, to deny all of his words that he had spoken. She could not have felt more proud and agonized before in her life at his refusal.

They put him in the hottest irons they could and attached him to a gray slab. If the melting irons wouldn't kill him, the eventual collapse of his lungs would. If his lungs didn't fail and kill him, their constant flogging would. If the flaying didn't kill him, then the executioner had a bow and arrow ready to plunge into his heart, and that would surely kill him.

Stone-faced he was throughout the whole ordeal. He refused to let the highbloods win. Absolutely refused. When they laughed at him and cursed him, he uttered not a sound in return. When they cracked their whips across his gray flesh and spat in his wounds, he grit his teeth and refused to scream.

But then he looked up and saw her in the crowd. They held her hands behind her back and pulled on her hair so hard that she was forced to watch. Her eyes filled with tears, and pain was written all over her face. She breathed in deep, choking gasps between sobs. Over and over again, she could say only two words. _"My son."_

He saw her face and heard her pain, and that caused his expression to change for the first time in what seemed like hours. First it was pity, then it was sorrow, and then it was blinding rage-filled pain. His yellow eyes shut tight and his whole body tightened up. He shouted at the top of his lungs, channeling every last bit of suffering and misery and pain into that one sound.

And then, just like that, he was gone. His limbs sagged and his chest caved in, his head rolled down, weak and heavy. She knew what was coming. They all knew it, but the highbloods needed the satisfaction of saying it.

The Grand Highblood, the leader of that wretched group, stalked over to his body. He lifted one of his huge, filthy hands and placed his fingertips on his chest, the chest that had been rising and falling only a moment ago. He sneered and let his fingers roam on the flesh, painting his fingers the candy red color of his blood.

Until, that is, she screamed. "Just _do it_ already!" She exploded into sobs, her body failing her as she fell to her knees, yanking herself free from the highbloods' grip. She had been crying too hard to notice that silence, dead as the body, had fallen over the crowd. Her jade-colored tears had blinded her to the sight of the Grand Highblood turning and looking at her, a twisted grin forming on his face.

"Bring her up to the front, boys," his growly voice ordered. "I think this woman wants a better view!" The other highbloods laughed. Some out of cruelty, and some out of fear, but they all laughed regardless. Two strong bluebloods grabbed her by her upper arms and dragged her through the dirt and through the crowd. She heard them curse and revile her, and she even felt some of them spit on her, but she couldn't say anything.

The bluebloods dropped her at the feet of the Grand Highblood. "Here she is, sir!" one of them said with a laugh.

"Good," growled the Highblood. He grabbed her chin and tilted her face upward, forcing her to look at him. She fixed her wide eyes on his face, swallowing any tears she might still have, and trying not to whimper in utter fear. "Hello," he said, and she was close enough to smell his rank breath and see how yellow and cracked his teeth were. "You wanted to watch? Then _watch!_" He threw her body forward, in the direction of the bloody corpse.

"No," she breathed at the sorry state he was in. "No, no, no."

"Oh, _yes!_" shouted the Grand Highblood. "But wait, there's more!" With that, the oversized male troll ripped her son's chest open, grabbing his crimson heart in his fist and pulling it out, sending blood and bone bits and tissue flying everywhere. A broken rib landed on her face and she screamed in horror.

"_This_," screamed the Highblood, over the roars of the crowd, "is the heart of a _traitor!_ A filthy, lowblood _traitor!_"

They all screamed and hollered, as if this was all part of some show. As if this whole execution was nothing but smoke and mirrors, all theatrics. But all she could do was weep. Weep and sob only three words.

"No, not my son… Not my son…"

The Grand Highblood had ordered that she be sold into slavery, and she was given – and just like that, she became a thing, not a troll – to the Orphaner Dualscar. He took all of her clothes away and gave her a ragged brown sack-like thing to wear. "Cover yourself, wench," he snarled as he threw the thing at her while she stood there, naked and trembling. Some of the other slaves had tried to comfort her, but she remained a silent, stone wall. She would not speak to anyone, and kept her gaze downcast for days.

In five days' time, the slaves heard the heavy footsteps of the Orphaner come pounding down the stairs of the dungeon where they were kept. "All right, you lot, stand up straight, now!" he commanded. They all scrambled to their feet, a mass of twig-like bodies and limbs.

As she rose to her feet, she whispered to the slave boy next to her, "What's going on?"

"Dualscar only tells us to do this when he's got a buyer," he explained in a hurried whisper. "One of us or more might get out of here."

"To where?"

The boy looked at her with sullen amber eyes. "Somewhere just as bad as this."

At that moment, by sheer, horrific coincidence, a horrific, shrill laugh pealed through the stone walls, echoing in their sensitive ears, not used to more than the occasional scrape of metal on stone anymore. "Oh, _Dualscar!_" It was a female's voice. "Come on now, don't be so _wrigglerish!_ It's positively unbecoming!"

She dug her claws into her palms. Something about this female terrified her already and she hadn't even seen her face yet.

The heavy wooden door slammed open, the chains on it rattling and scraping against each other. "Well, here they are, Mindfang," Dualscar said. "See if any of 'em are to your likin'."

The female troll stepped out of the doorway and into the slaves' line of sight. She was very tall, with wild, black hair and long horns. Her lips were painted blue, and two fangs jutted out from her top lip. She was dressed in all black, save for electric blue stitching on it, and the outfit was made to show off and even grossly accentuate her feminine body. Atop her head and just between her horns was a rather large black hat with a long, bright blue feather jutting out from the back of it.

There was no doubt in her mind. This woman was dangerous.

The female walked slowly in front of their cells – though they might as well have been called cages, for that was their purpose – scanning briefly over every single one of them. "Too thin," she commented on one orangeblood girl. "Too fat, skinny him up, Dualscar," she said about a rustblood whose stomach protruded not from fat but from malnutrition. "Too young," she remarked about the little boy standing next to her.

Upon their gaze meeting, the troll called Mindfang stopped in her place. She blatantly ran her eyes up and down her form, a somewhat puzzled expression on her face. "What's this one's blood color?" she asked the Orphaner. "She's new."

"A jadeblood, Marquise Mindfang."

"Jadeblood," she slowly repeated with interest. "You, Jadeblood, come here," she ordered, beckoning her with a long blue claw.

Reluctantly, she swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped forward. "Closer, closer," muttered Mindfang, and she kept going until their bodies were separated only by the iron bars of the cell. The Marquise stared at her inquisitively for a moment, and it was now that she noticed one of her eyes was covered up by a thin black patch. Suddenly her hand came forward, and she flinched thinking that the troll on the other side of the bars was about to strike her.

But that was not the case. Mindfang ran her fingers along the slave's cheek, down her neck, over her shoulder. "Pretty one, aren't ya?" she mused for a moment before drawing her hand back. "What's your name, jadeblood?"

"I don't have one," she answered.

"Why not?"

She bit her lip. "I'm not…a troll anymore. I'm a thing. Property." The rehearsed answer that Dualscar expected of them whenever the question was asked pained her, and it took everything she had to keep a sob from ruining her speech.

Mindfang laughed hysterically and clapped. "You've done a good job with this one, haven't ya, Dualscar?" she practically shouted. The slave flinched from the sheer volume of the Marquise's voice. As she brought her composure back, a sneer came across her sharp, deadly-looking features. "What do they call you here, jadeblood?"

She gulped. "The…the Dolorosa."

The Marquise feigned sadness poorly as she pouted one of her bright blue lips. "Pity, pity, dear girl, they call you 'sorrow?'" That was not what the word meant, but she was not in a place to argue anymore, because she was not a troll, she was a thing. So she nodded. "Well, at least the word sounds nice." Without any notice, she turned around to face the scarred man standing in the back, his muscular arms crossed as he watched the whole affair. "This one, Dualscar!"

The Orphaner quirked an eyebrow. "You do understand I'll have to charge more because of her blood, right?"

Mindfang scoffed. "And _you_ realize that I have enough to pay for the entire lot of them three times and still have plenty left over?" she retorted with mild insult. "I said this one, and I meant it."

And just like that, the Dolorosa was sold to the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.

God help her.

"We'll get you some better clothes later," Mindfang said as she lead her by the arm up onto her massive ship. The Dolorosa had never seen anything like it before in her life, and she was in stunned silence as Mindfang – the captain of this massive thing, she found out – brought her on board. "But in the meantime, you'll just have to deal with that rag you've got there."

The pair of female trolls walked onto the deck, and the Dolorosa shrank internally. Mindfang had a very large crew, mostly of very large male trolls, to maintain the ship. It should have been obvious to her from the start, but for some reason, she had not considered it. They hustled quickly in all directions past the two, only grunting in recognition of their captain. When the Marquise spotted one or two slacking off from their work, all that was needed was a sharp glance from her, and they immediately got to their feet and reported to their station. It was remarkable how much control she had over these men.

Suddenly she felt a sharp smack to the back of the head. "Hey! Are you listening to me, girl?" she heard Mindfang snarl into her ear.

The Dolorosa kept her head down. In all of the excitement, she had forgotten that Mindfang was speaking to her. "I'm sorry, Marquise," she responded. "P-please forgive my rudeness."

Mindfang looked puzzled for a moment. "You're well-spoken. Good. I like that." She took the slave by the arm again and led her up a very small flight of stairs. "You'll be forgiven just this once, girl, but don't get used to it." As they reached the top of the stairs, Mindfang whipped a ring of keys out of her pocket. "This is my cabin here," she explained as she inserted the iron bit into its hole and turned it. "Normally, all of you lot sleep below deck with the rats and fleas." She led the Dolorosa into her cabin and gave her a toothy grin. "But you're an exception, m'dear. You get to stay here with me! Take a look around."

With some trepidation – why was she being given special treatment? – she did as she was told. There was a contraption that looked as though it was used for sleeping, but it was not a recuperacoon. "That is…"

"A bed, girl, a bed," said the captain, taking a seat on it and crossing her muscular, toned legs. "Doesn't pay to have a slimy trap for sleeping while you're out at sea. The stuff flies everywhere and it just makes a right mess. But this is comfortable enough, and nowhere near as messy." She patted the area next to her, gesturing that the slave take the place beside her. In no position to argue or disobey, lest she be punished brutally, she did so.

"Now," said the captain. "Tell me, how did a pretty little jadeblood like you wind up in Dualscar's hands?" She placed her hand on the Dolorosa's thigh, sending a creepy shiver up her spine.

"I…I do not wish to speak of it," she responded carefully, trying not to invoke her wrath.

"Come oooooooon!" urged the Marquise, snaking her fingers between her slave's thighs and shimmying upward towards an area she _absolutely should not be touching_.

"No!" cried the Dolorosa, instinctively jumping upward and smacking the blueblood's hand away. She gasped upon realizing what she had done. She had denied her master. She had _struck_ her master. She would be punished. She knew it and began to shake.

Mindfang's lips curled into a snarl. "Think you're tough, do ya, girl? Think again!" But suddenly she could not think. It was as if her mind was being probed and blocked by something, and of its own accord, her body collapsed to the floor, her face slamming right into the splintery wood beneath her. Green blood began to drip out of her nostril, but she could not move her arms to wipe it away. She could not even speak. All she could do was look up at the Marquise, who seemed to be very, very concentrated on something. Was this her doing? If it was, she was even more dangerous than the Dolorosa had expected her to be.

"Now, if you won't tell me, I'll find out myself…" Suddenly the Dolorosa could see pictures in her mind clearly, but only in snippets.

_The sight of a wriggling red grub in her arms, looking up at her with pitiable, wide eyes. _

_A tiny young troll walking next to her, holding her hand and saying, "But, Mother, why can't anyone know that I have red blood?" _

_The sound of her own crying and his hand on her thighs, saying, "Is it not okay that I see those things, Mother?"_

_He is older now, and he lifts his hands from a dead female's throat. Like magic, her wounds heal and her green blood flows back into her body as he whispers something under his breath. "Rise, child; your virtue has saved you." And she does._

"_I have to tell them, Mother," he says to her, even older now. "I hope you understand." She hears her own voice respond._

_He is standing at the center of a crowd, mostly lowbloods but a few highbloods, even one legislacerator. "It is impossible for our race to continue down this bloody path if we do not allow it to!" he says loudly and proudly, and they all cheer, and she hears herself gasp in awe of his wisdom and bravery._

_She sees him and the legislacerator talking fervently. "They're hunting you down, Signless," she tells him, teal tears falling behind her bright red glasses. "They're hunting you and they plan to kill you! I shouldn't even be here. If they see me with you, they'll kill you, or…" She cannot talk anymore, and you can see tears welling up in your eyes of their own accord as he takes her into his arms, telling her not to worry, that things will be as they are meant to be, and you can feel yourself envy his constant peace of mind._

_She sees highbloods pour out from the bushes in the middle of the battlefield. "You, Signless, are under arrest," the Grand Highblood snarls as he pins him to the ground, cuffing his wrists behind his back. "Why don't you work one of your little _miracles_ to get out of this one?"_

_She sees the Empress stand up from her throne and approach him, looking downward. "Very well," she says as she taps her scepter on the marble floor. "Signless, since you refuse to recant your teachings, you will be sentenced to public execution by irons."_

_She feels herself fighting against the highbloods, trying to get to the troll you call "son" as they fix the irons around his wrists. "Stop, Mother!" he calls above the din. "Forgive them, they know not what they do!"_

And suddenly the memories stopped pouring in and she felt her senses take over once more. She gasped for air and felt herself shaking and covered in sweat. She also heard Mindfang laughing, actually laughing at her.

She sounded just like the bluebloods at his execution.

"Oh, my, what an iiiiiiiinteresting life you've lead, little Dolorosa!" the captain sneered. "And this right now, this here? It's your fear. You're afraid of highbloods now. You are _terrified_ of what highbloods can do to you now. After all, after witnessing that _awful_ tragedy with your little-"

"I am _not_," snarled the Dolorosa as she rose to her feet, "_afraid_ of _you._"

"Oh?" said the Marquise, placing a finger to her chin inquisitively.

"_No_. What you saw… That wasn't fear. It was _grief!_" She screams the word, and her voice cracks because she has not used it in so long. "You have no idea… You have _no_ idea what that is, do you?" When Mindfang does not answer, but rather simply stares at her flatly, she continues. "That little grub… That was my _son_. I _raised_ him. He had no lusus, and I pitied him, and I became his mother. Do you know what that's like? Do you?"

She didn't wait for an answer, but rather, in a frenzy, stamped her foot on the floor, not caring about the splinters that buried themselves in her heel. "It's like giving up your whole life for the sake of someone else. It's like devoting every last second of your time for another troll, and at first you can't seem to fathom why. Or how one creature could possibly need you so much. I remember when he was a grub, and every time he would start to wail and cry, when those tears would well up in his eyes and his little button nose became runny, and I would just think to myself, 'Why, God, why are you doing this to me?'

"But then I realized that if I was raising this child, this precious little life that needed protection and love and care, I had to stop thinking about myself." She scoffed openly. "To think that trolls as a race have grown so selfish that we breed _animals_ to care for our young, because we cannot fathom how to remove ourselves from the equation and live for them."

"And what does this have to do with your…'grief,' you call it?" asked Mindfang, clearly amused and yet somewhat intrigued by her newest slave's behavior.

"It has _everything_ to do with it!" shouted the Dolorosa. "Because the moment I could stop living for myself was the moment I realized that I _loved_ this little grub. And do you know what? He grew up from being a grub, and I still loved him. He learned the word 'mother' – that was my role, mother – by sheer magic, it seemed. He just woke up one day and said to me, 'Mother, I love you.'" She fought off the coming tears bravely. "You will never know what it's like, hearing a child say that to you. Because when they say it, they mean it, and you know that everything you did was right."

"But you technically _stole_ him-"

"_Shut up,_ you _bitch!_" She forgot her place and she didn't even care anymore. Mindfang was clearly too stunned to punish her anyway, so she kept talking. "I was meant to raise that child from the moment I saw him. I raised him and loved him and taught him everything I knew. But he taught me so much more." No longer could she hold back her tears, and a sob racked her chest and her heart filled with anguish.

"My child," said the Dolorosa, looking the Marquise straight in the eyes, not caring about her falling tears, "had profound wisdom and strength. He could perform miracles. He raised a troll from the _dead_. He spoke of nothing but love and gentleness and compassion, and had the most peaceful spirit I have ever seen. He taught me more about how to live than I ever taught him. That any troll could have taught him. And for what?" She choked back a sob and wiped away the blood and mucus from her nose with her hand. "To be _slaughtered_ by the highbloods for _made-up_ crimes!"

She stalked over to Mindfang and grabbed her by her shirt collar, taking the captain by surprise. "I bet you were _there_, weren't you? You were there and you _laughed_ at my little boy! You stood there and you watched him and you let the highbloods do as they wanted and you _laughed!_" She slapped the other troll directly across the face. "As far as I'm concerned, _you killed my child!_"

The Dolorosa threw the captain down on the ground and hugged herself, feeling for the first time how much she was trembling from pain and agony and fear and rage. "And for the record, 'Dolorosa' doesn't mean 'sorrow.' It means 'grieving.'"

Mindfang, incredulous at what a mere _slave_ had just done, touched a hand to her bruised cheek. She stared, dumbfounded, at the woman before her. Slowly, very slowly, she rose to her feet and approached the door to her cabin. "I'll…have to think of what to do with you," were her only words.

And as the heavy door closed, another picture rose to her mind, this time of her own accord. It was the look in her child's eyes, just before they took him away to be executed, as they allowed him to embrace her one last time. He said no words, but his eyes said everything.

They said _I love you._

She fell to her knees and sobbed.

She would never be able to erase the image of his eyes.


End file.
